


Your Life On Earth

by AstroNella



Series: Your Life On Earth [1]
Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: Gen, Kryten explains everything, M/M, artificial reality game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29085267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroNella/pseuds/AstroNella
Summary: The crew have found a copy of Your Life On Earth, an artificial reality game package, and decide it's worth trying it out. But remembering Rimmer's behaviour when they played Better Than Life, and Kryten's antics in Jane Austen World, is this really a good idea?
Relationships: Dave Lister/Arnold Rimmer
Series: Your Life On Earth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2133927
Kudos: 4





	Your Life On Earth

**Author's Note:**

> Trying to decide what to write about next, I came up with the idea of adventures in artificial reality. This is a brief introductory fic, where Kryten explains to the crew (and readers) about the game. This fic is a general ensemble piece but later fics will be more Lister/Rimmer focused (with appropriate ratings).

Kryten came rushing into the crew quarters pushing the breakfast trolley. The Cat followed behind, but Rimmer and Lister were still in their bunks.

“Oh Sirs!” Kryten called. “Breakfast is served – and I have some exciting news for everyone!”

The Cat sat at the table, removing all the lids from the breakfast serving trays and helping himself to pancakes. The aroma of hot blueberries was enough to stir Lister from his slumbers. He climbed down from the bunk, keen to grab some breakfast before the Cat could claim the lot.

Lister sat at the table and rubbed his eyes. “What's up Krytes?”

“I finished the scanning of _Your Life On Earth_ overnight – it's all fine, no glitches, and it will run on our artificial reality suite! I'll get it set up today, so you will need to decide what to use it for first.”

Lister and the Cat were stuffing their faces, but Rimmer, sitting on the edge of his bunk, was listening. “What's _Your Life On Earth_?”

“It's an artificial reality package Sir. A recreation of everyday life on humanity's home planet.”

Lister swallowed a forkful of pancake. “Everyday life? You mean dull stuff? An artificial reality suite where you can play at going to work in an office or factory for eight hours? Excuse me if I don't rush off to play immediately.”

Rimmer grumbled. “Oh Listy, you've got no sense of achievement have you? You've no idea how fulfilling a meaningful career can be.”

“It's not like your career was meaningful or fulfilling. Unclogging soup machines and constantly failing exams. Admit it, you never enjoyed it at the time, unless you were trying to boss me about.”

“I might have enjoyed it more if you hadn't been so insubordinate. Anyway, you have to follow your dreams when you're young. You never know, you might be successful.”

“Like you, you mean? Your greatest career achievement was getting hold of one of the new double-decker trolleys with a footbrake before anyone else on our shift.”

Rimmer smiled. “It was an achievement. They were very smart, good engineering in those trolleys. All from recycled parts.”

“Is that why you never let me push it?”

Kryten interrupted. “Sirs, please! I always like to think you're both a little wiser than you were back then. Please don't spoil it. There are countless things you can do in this game, it's not just about work at all.”

Cat laughed. “Wiser? Goal-Post Head? With that dress sense?”

Rimmer pulled a face. “We can't all look like a Las Vegas hotel sign. Think of the damage to people's retinas.”

Lister wiped his mouth. “Kryten, what's this game like? Is it like _Better Than Life_?”

“Oh no, Sir, it's much more sophisticated than the early TIVGs and AR setups. After all the furore which followed _Better Than Life_ , it was thought that TIVGs weren't suited well as general entertainment videogames. Before _Better Than Life_ was released, they had been used as military training tools across Earth, and afterwards, they regained their earlier use, but more so by large global corporations and off-world organisations.”

“So, they weren't designed any more to let you go anywhere or do anything?”

“Precisely, Sir. The forward scenario programming, which the first generation of gamers who originally popularised _Better Than Life_ regarded as an inconvenience and greatly restricting, turned out, in the right hands, to be the format's saving grace. Just as military personnel for decades had trained in survival and reconnaissance and other frontline skills through TIVGs, and the corporate world used to train skilled engineers and other personnel for a life away from Earth with the early full-scale AR suites, a market began to emerge for individuals who wanted a fully-immersive experience of a limited simulation of a time and place in the world. And it proved to be relatively inexpensive to adapt this to enable any user to set up their own scenario. Hence, the fashion for artificial reality games based on movie franchises, or series of novels, or to entice visitors to Earth to undertake Pacific Island cruises, or cultural tours of cities in Europe or East Asia.”

Lister blinked a few times, attempting to digest this information. He was about to ask a question when Rimmer spoke first.

“Is that what we can do with this game? We tell it where to go and it only goes there, do you mean?”

“Indeed. I've set up the mailbox for the game so that it's connected to the ship's internal email system. If you email a document to the game's email address, it will download it to its system and work on formulating a scenario which you can then play.”

Lister was still trying to work out what this all meant. “So, what would we send to it and what will it do?”

“Well Sir, the possibilities are endless. If you wanted to explore a particular city, you would email a document about the city to the inbox. It would then extrapolate the information contained in the document and create a simulation which you can play. The more detail it can work with, the more accurate the simulated scenario – otherwise, it fills in the gaps with algorithmically-defined data or basic unchanging information from its databanks, such as the position of the constellations in the sky, amongst other knowledge it builds up over time. Also, I should warn you that the more information you send for a given scenario, the longer it will take to render. So my advice would be to take your time, or start small.”

“What about me?” Rimmer asked. “Would I still be a hologram or would I have a real body? I mean, would it feel more real?”

“All players are recreated as close as possible to their current physical status. To others in the game, whether it's other players or characters we encounter, you will be as human as the rest of us.”

The Cat grinned. “So, I'll still be the most human of all of us!” He set his knife and fork down onto his empty plate. “Wait a minute...” He stopped, trying to work out if being the most human was compatible with being the most feline.

“So, what documents do we need?” Lister asked.

“Whatever you have,” Kryten replied. “Photographs, posters, train timetables, scholarly journal papers, anything it can read. To begin with, I would suggest something small-scale and neutral. Go onto the Internet archive and download a brochure from a property sale website.”

Lister caught Rimmer's eye. Living together in a real house? This might be more fun than it originally sounded.


End file.
